Brownian Emotion

Who wants to live forever?

Queen ably sung the question in the movie Highlander about a man who could not die. People like Aubrey de Gray and Ray Kurzweil continually prod the skeptics with "why not live forever?" And even a relative unknown like me has fictionally asked the question from the point of view of those who can actually make the choice.

This essay is inspired by a news article you might find interesting, though not ultimately satisfying. The key is that people [outside of science fiction] are starting to seriously talk about the practical implications of immortality. As we get closer to the "break even" point, you can count on this gaining mind share. But it’s anyone’s guess where people will split on the issue. Having done a significant amount of research on this for my last novel, Eight Immortals, I’m going to venture a few educated guesses.

For those of you who are still skeptical about whether this will even be an issue, consider that Clinical/Medical/Practical Immortality (the kind where treatments keep you alive) isn’t so far away, at least when counting life-spans (1 to 2) instead of years (50 to 150). Historically, we added about 1 year to the average individual life-span for every 50 years of scientific progress. Last century, it was one year for every ten, approaching one for every five in the near future. As that rate improves and accelerates, at some point, we’ll add at least one year of life expectancy every calendar year, meaning the end target life-span increases even faster than we get old. That’s called the "break-even" point, because someone alive at that point could theoretically stick around long enough to live forever, even if immortality isn’t actually available at her birth. I may or may not live to see that point. But assuming it’s possible at all, my children almost certainly will.

The most painfully obvious question politicians and bioethicists need to answer is that if we all live from 120 years to forever and the birth rate outpaces the death rate (more than now), where do all the people go? The science fictional answers run the gamut. But we know it will be solved one way or another, for better (perhaps into space) or for worse (perhaps war or oppression). How, What and When are pretty much up to science and business, to the extent we don’t interfere. The more important questions left for us regular folks to consider now are the Who and Why questions of immortality. And if we don’t answer those, we’ll likely be at the whim of those who do.

Will we choose to live forever?

It’s implicit in these discussions that people don’t want to die. They’re scared of death, that this life may be all we get. And why not live forever? There’s nothing implicitly wrong with it. So the natural answer for the vast majority of people is "damn right."

But I know plenty of elderly that have had their fill of life and even the Atheists are comfortable with death. I think a lot of it depends on the quality of the indivual’s life, both then and in their predicted future. Even today, people will allow or choose to end their lives under certain conditions. Imagine if you’re 200 and everyone you love has died, or you’re in incurable pain (not terminal, but awful). Imagine if you choose to sign up for war, or you’re a firefighter. You may choose mortality for your own reasons or put yourself at risk for a greater good. I’m not judging any of these decisions, but people who say that everyone they know would choose immortality might not know enough people.

So you want to live forever. Can you afford it?

Consider the rising cost of insurance today. Even if we solve that completely, insurance only works because not everyone gets sick. We spread the risk. But with something as likely as death (100%), we can’t count on any sort of insurance to pick up the tab. At best, we’ll have something like a 401k plan, where we pay ahead and hope for the miracle of compounded interest to save us — and if you watched Frontline this week, you’d doubt even that.

Who wants to work forever?

That’s the more likely question, unless you have enough natural wealth to support your continued addiction to life. And if you think it’ll be a cheap one-time pill, you don’t know drug companies. Because we can assume that those who want to keep living will pay any price (whatever they have) to stay alive, the laws of supply and demand simply won’t apply. If someone is willing to pay $1M a year to stay alive, why should you be able to pay only $100?

In the free market, even with an incentive to keep you alive and paying forever, you may be out-priced and die. Or, perhaps, we’ll see a 10% or 50% yearly tithe to Pfizer and Merck, a sort of flat-rate tax on life. But there’s still the issue of draw-down vs. accumulation of wealth over time. If you’re not above the break-even wealth, then eventually, you’re toast.

What would society be like, if immortality isn’t free?

This single issue could push either Capitalism or Democracy over the edge. As things currently stand, we’re likely to see two classes of people emerge: immortals, and the rest of us. With sufficient (break-even) wealth, say, $10 million 2006 dollars, wealth and power will generally grow over time. For the rest of us, our meager savings will inevitably draw down, the costs of simply living increasing exponentially with each extended year. And since we’re so easy to produce and contribute relatively less with our 80 years than someone with, say, 500, the overall value of our lives will continue to be cheap. People will continue to be expendable, exploitable, and utterly repressible.

Is that sustainable?

If there’s one thing people will tend to revolt over, it’s certain death. My guess is we poor mortals would eventually revolt, unless the powerful can instill hope that that we have a viable route up (the lottery? fame? IPO?), or convince us that we simply don’t want to live forever, or otherwise scare us into submission. If the rat race for individual wealth becomes more a scramble for life than lifestyle, just imagine what kind of cut-throat society we’ll be.

What about Religion?

It’s much more likely we’ll see new religious movements emerge, ones which will praise the virtues of natural death. Some might have to split a few hairs if they’re "pro-life" for birth and "pro-death" at the end, of if they deny elective euthanasia to escape pain but claim a moral imperative to make room for new life. How far can that hypocrisy be pushed before people understand that morality will have (or has already) taken back seat to powerful cynical interests?

But playing along, one can argue that if the soul exists, then we’re already, in a sense, immortal. Are we not violating "God’s plan" by not dying on cue? I’m not just limiting this to Christianity. If re-incarnation exists, with or without karma, are we not abandoning our pursuit of long-term spiritual growth by ignoring the natural cycle of life, death, and rebirth? Might we not spiritually stagnate as a species if we can and do live forever?

Cynical motivations or not, these are valid and difficult questions, which only makes it more likely we’ll be divided and manipulated by those in power for their own ends (see Gay Marriage, Abortion, Prayer in Schools). And lest we not forget that one of the origins of religion was to answer the very question "what happens when we die?" then organized religion may find itself in direct opposition to immortality out of sheer self preservation. Which force will win? And with what kind of fight?

Do Immortals even need religion?

The flip-side of all this is that in reality, given a broader-based expansion of life-expectancy, we might actually grow up for a change and take responsibility instead of pushing problems off on our kids. Whether any of the above spiritual ideas are "true," we’re certainly born without much innate knowledge or wisdom. Whatever we have right now is learned. So given 1000 years, might we not learn enough to actually answer some of those age-old questions too? Who are we? What are we meant to do? If a tree falls in the woods…?

Where does it lead, in the end?

There’s a common trait I’ve noticed among people who seek immortality (beyond avoiding the fear or futility of death). They tend to want control over other natural processes too, usually via science, technology, and not necessarily to the detriment of nature and the "lesser" beings — Extropian and Granola aren’t mutually exclusive, as long as we humans are exempt. And control over death is not even the ultimate goal. The ultimate is control over reality, over the limitations of life that cause us to suffer and need and want. So given enough time, the Immortalists, I believe, would see us evolve to become like the Gods we always imagined, powerful enough to engineer stars and build mountains with our minds. That may very well be our destiny.

My only hope is that by the time we’re that powerful, we have enough wisdom to match. Because I’m certain that if we had such power today, we’d all retreat into our own solipsistic worlds out of sheer necessity. It’d be too easy to destroy each other on a whim.

On the other hand, the upside of immortality is fairly bright. If we can finally figure out how to share, then a population of thousand-year-olds might have a much better view of the value and meaning of life. I mean, if it takes 1000 years to make a world-class citizen, then the loss of even one such person is significant. We might even get to the point where we treat people as more valuable than buildings, artifacts, and commodities, like oil.

Now that is something I could really look forward to.